


and on and on

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, and a lil bit of jim and bones and a brief appearance by spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: they’re adrift in space, no world turning beneath their feet, and still they celebrate the passage of 365 days as if there is





	and on and on

**Author's Note:**

> there are no capitals because This Was Supposed To Be A Textpost

carol's world has just fallen apart. her dad tried to start an intergalactic war, a supervillain from the 1990s viciously broke her knee, and she almost died, twice. jim kirk- a tentative ally, a future friend- _did_.

(and then he didn't.)

so it goes.

she's not sure what she signed up for, except maybe her apparently-callously-evil father's approval, but she doesn't think it was this. she should've...

carol wanted to be a biologist, once upon a time; she'd even double majored in her undergrad before turning down a path she's regretted ever since. she could go back to school, couldn't she? it's not like she has anyone to impress with her proficiency in weaponry any longer.

this is the thought behind her humorless snort as she tosses back some of scotty's mystery liquor; it's the thought nyota, with a tired whisp of something approximating a smile, doesn't ask about as she raises her glass in sarcastic toast.

"amen to that, sister."

carol asks, "does it ever get easier?"

and nyota lies, "of course it does."

they lean into each other, tipsily trusting, as they abandon the officer's lounge later that night. still later, carol doesn't ship out on the five year mission.

before they leave, she clings to jim, a friend turned family in the intervening months of rummy played over hospital sidetables and old movies watched in sweats and old tshirts, and she tries to shake dr. mccoy's legendary hand before he tugs her in with a curmudgeonly scoff and soft eyes, his tall frame bowed to fit around hers.

nyota is already aboard the shuttle.

carol waves goodbye, receiving a soft smile and a flutter of fingertips in return, and this should, by all rights, be the end of their acquaintance. other than one slightly drunken night of conversation and assorted pleasantries exchanged as they passed in the halls of starfleet, they don't really know each other.

yet--

it's nyota she calls when she grows frustrated with the world of academia once more. "I already have a doctorate," she bemoans. she's not even really so old as to be out of place among the other grad students, and yet she feels it.

"should've just gone for a masters," nyota mocks.

"bite me."

"only if you ask nicely," comes the prim response, and carol's startled into laughter.

nyota comms her, too; carol listens dutifully to complaints about jim, complaints about spock, complaints about the two of them together and also the rest of the bridge crew and, more sparingly, the officers under nyota's command in the communications division.

sometimes, nyota calls with nothing to say in particular; on these nights, her smile is soft, her eyeliner removed, her lipstick smudged on the rim of the mug jim recently bought her as a joke--Number One Dad.

(dr. mccoy, of course, had received one labelled "Number One Mom", and spock's had been edited to simply read "Number One".)

carol isn't sure when her calls with nyota had become a part of her routine, but she can't deny how off kilter she feels when the _enterprise_ finally passes out of easy range of earth. nyota had warned her when they last spoke several days before, but that doesn't change the way carol's smile slides from her face when her comm attempt results in an error message.

(in the days following, she does not _mope_ , and anyone suggesting otherwise should remember that at this point in time, her knowledge of the anatomy of terran vertebrates is still secondary to her understanding of the design, construction, and operation of advanced weaponry.)

life, as it always does, moves on.

carol graduates, the _enterprise_ swings back into the quadrant on a diplomatic mission, and jim, somehow, remembers her birthday, after one offhand comment made a third of the way into a gallon of mint chocolate ice cream.

"come visit; we can have a party," he says, but he's using his captain voice.

"you can't sit around and wait for one woman to catch up to you," she scoffs.

"we're about to be on shore leave," he insists. "c’mon, carol, bones misses you." he leans in, eyebrows raised. “ _nyota_ misses you.”

and that is... apparently the end of that.

of course, jim has a little more in mind than a simple visit. carol's greeted by him down on one knee, a party hat set jauntily atop his head and a set of science blues held forward on a throw cushion she definitely recognizes from that time jim "broke" them into dr. mccoy's apartment to "borrow" the good booze. "I know you've already gotten a couple other offers, so if you aren’t interested, then no hard--"

"are you kidding me? fork them over."

carol immediately pulls the dress over her head before shedding her shirt and shorts with the ease of a girl who played club football for years and often had to change into her uniform and boots in the back of a hovercar.

who in their right mind would turn down a posting on the flagship? she's positively gleeful as she cancels her passage home and requests her roommates pack her things into storage.

"told you she couldn't resist my charm," jim boasts.

"this is in spite of your 'charm', not because of it," carol shoots back.

nyota slings an arm around her shoulders as jim gasps in mock betrayal. "oh, you'll fit in just fine," carol's told, nyota's voice thick with laughter, and it's strange how the world fell to pieces years ago and yet carol's never felt more complete.

there's no time limit on their conversations now, no impending termination of communication; if carol had thought nyota a part of her routine before, it's only because she hadn’t been able to imagine brown toes tucked under her thigh as their owner waves around a gag gift of a mug and tries out the sounds of a new language. carol smiles to herself and idly scours the mission brief for the familiar--anatomy, hostility, and societal faux pas the likes of which she's known since she was a child at her mother's knee.

a jack of all trades, jim calls her sometimes.

(carol appreciates the look in nyota's eye when he does, given how often she finds her _self_ swooning over nyota's vast array of musical, linguistical, and physical skill sets.)

their first kiss feels--inevitable.

and yet neither of them is willing to take that step, to admit they've long since passed from acquaintances to friends to something else altogether. carol considers, briefly, asking jim for advice--

but, well.

there’s spock.

he's something of an enigma to carol; an adversary turned ally turned good friends' good friend turned workplace supervisor. she both knows him and doesn't, stories she's been told by nyota and jim and dr. mccoy at odds with their lightly antagonistic start. his deadpan sort of sarcasm is both familiar from her british youth and utterly alien in its delivery; the professionalism with which he addresses her, at once soothing and unsettling.

she straightens her shoulders, chin lifted defiantly, as she regards him. this new year's party is a battle ground, and one from which carol intends to walk away the winner.

"how did you do it?" is both an innocuous question, and a highly inappropriate thing to ask of a man she barely knows, given the implied meaning behind it.

spock is very tall, and his eyes are very dark as he watches her right back. "I did nothing," he admits, because there's no point in pretending he doesn't know what she means. "what nyota wants, she chases."

this is, of course, not the answer carol is looking for, given that nyota has had- and forsaken- ample opportunity to chase _her_.

carol bites her lip and asks, "shall I just give up then?"

spock doesn’t hesitate: "I should think not."

carol nods her agreement, and then, because she's had just enough alcohol to think it’s the best way to thank him for his candor, she asks him to dance. at midnight, spock obligingly leans down to allow her to press a chaste kiss to his forehead, and on the other side of the room nyota laughs as mr. scott and keenser- standing on the back of the couch- kiss her cheeks simultaneously.

they’re adrift in space, no world turning beneath their feet, and still they celebrate the passage of 365 days as if there is:

life. goes. on.

carol locks herself in her room on the anniversary of the night her father died; the night jim died; the night her life shattered along with the bones in her knee. tomorrow, she’ll scrub her cheeks, replicate some ice cream, and celebrate that most of those things aren’t relevant any more.

tonight, she mourns that they ever had to happen to her at all.

 _is it getting any easier?_ nyota asks, the words small and black on the screen of carol’s padd.

_not really._

_yeah. me either._

_wanna talk?_

_gonna open the door?_

_for you, maybe._

this isn’t the night that carol finally kisses nyota, but it is the night that she falls asleep upright on the couch, nyota’s cheek against her thigh and gently musical snores curling through her quarters. it’s the night that carol listens because she’s not yet ready to speak, and it’s the night that carol realizes nyota isn’t sure what to do when the chase is over before it’s even begun.

their first kiss is--inevitable.

their first kiss is just the first of many.

**Author's Note:**

> bonus points if you caught the slaughterhouse five reference


End file.
